First of all, you're probably wondering: the what Bank? Well, just because you may never have heard of it, that doesn't mean that it doesn't matter to a lot of people. Angry Republicans on Capitol Hill, for starters. And every one else as well.
The Ex-Im Bank (for short), as described here, provides guarantees for loans that help American companies sell goods abroad. That's all it does. And, amazingly, it makes a profit while doing it. In other words, it not only costs the taxpayers absolutely nothing, it actually helps to reduce the deficit. And, for those reasons alone, it differs tremendously from most forms of "corporate welfare."
For the most part, "corporate welfare" consists of actually handing money over to private companies, without any strings attached, either in the form of direct subsides or preferential tax treatment. Not surprisingly, this is always rationalized as being in the "public interest" in some sort of specious way. And, in some cases, there may have been at one time some justification for that label, if the industry in question has long-term potential for public good and needs a short-term boost to realize its potential. Thus, the oil industry may have actually required subsidies at one time. But anyone familiar with the profits from oil knows that the need for that short-term boost expired decades ago. I believe that solar power needed and deserved to benefit from public subsidies but, now that it's taking off as a private industry, there is clearly an argument for re-directing those subsidies.
That's the beauty of the Ex-Im Bank. It does not enable long-term spending of public money for any one industry, or segment of the private sector. It primarily serves as a guarantor of risk, one that has actually created tax revenue rather than re-directing it. As the Slate article to which the link above is connected, the basic concept behind the bank has been duplicated and expanded in application around the world, and as close to home as Canada. The article mentions President Obama's proposed "infrastructure bank" as an example of how the Ex-Im Bank model could be expanded to create a whole new range of private-public partnerships that could meet public needs in ways that expand the private sector as well--but without the inherent cronyism of "corporate welfare."
But that brings us back to Republican determination to kill the bank. Why? Not because they object to using government in ways that help the private sector. For them, helping the private sector is the only reason that government exists. And the Ex-Im Bank does much more than help Wall Street; it also helps Main Street, in the form of jobs that frequently are union jobs. Even worse, the Ex-Im bank was a New Deal creation. Unions! F.D.R! No wonder they can't wait to kill it. Today's modern Republican Party isn't about serving everyone through compromise; it's about serving its contributors through fascism.
The Ex-Im Bank could actually serve as a beacon toward America's future. Instead, it seems destined to become a victim of the insatiable conservative appetite for power. As will we all, unless we wake up.
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